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THE British tend to be uncomfortable about the idea of the state keeping tabs on them. Compulsory identity cards, in use during two world wars, were quickly abandoned in peacetime. Seven years ago, a Conservative home secretary, Michael Howard, was forced into a humiliating retreat after failing to convince colleagues that the time and the technology were ripe for another attempt. Given this history, it is hardly surprising that the current home secretary, David Blunkett, is approaching the issue cautiously. The home secretary is now pressing the case for a universal ID card, using the 80m passports and driving licences now in circulation as the basis for a national register. Illegal immigration is one reason why Mr Blunkett is so keen on the idea. Support for ID cards was part of the deal Mr Blunkett did recently with the French interior minister, Nicolas Sarkozy, to close the Sangatte refugee camp, because the French believe that their absence encourages immigrants. Blunkett's other main claim for a national ID card is that it would help tackle identity fraud.

he September 11th, 2001 terrorist attacks on America, and repeated warnings that the next targets could be Germany, England, France, or Italy show how vulnerable Europe is to new threats, from instability in regions far away, from failed or failing states and from the spread of weapons of mass destruction. In the past, many Europeans have seen such problems as America's to deal with, or no one's. At the North Atlantic Treaty Organization summit in Prague, the Czech Republic, on November 21st-22nd, 2002, and in the European Union's subsequent deliberations about the best use of its own embryonic rapid-reaction force, European leaders will commit themselves, at least on paper, to take on farther-flung responsibilities. After half a century of being wrapped up chiefly in their own affairs, Europe must think urgently about how best to defend themselves and their interests anywhere in the world. Although Europe has prided itself on their civilizing "soft power", most European governments recognize that more hard power, military capability, in short, is required. The go-anywhere NATO that is to be proclaimed at the summit will in any case face the old NATO's problems: too few fleet-footed capabilities, with smart weapons and secure communications, of the sort that America displayed in Kosovo and Afghanistan, and which are needed to win wars. The Iraq debate at the United Nations has been an all-too-familiar case-study in how Europeans get themselves at cross-purposes, with an activist Britain, a cautious France and an ohne mich Germany all pulling in different directions. America easily leads the world in almost every dimension of power. But Europe, with its bigger population and not much smaller gross domestic product, reckoned to be larger, in fact, until America's faster growth and the depreciating euro reversed the honors, has considerable heft, and that weight will grow as the EU takes in more members.